f the plateau. The rivers have deep valleys with steep
sides and do not furnish arable valley floors; most of the grazing and
farming are done on the flatter mountaintops. The rivers provide little
access into the area and are barriers to communication within it. Roads
are few and poor. Lacking internal communications and external contacts,
a tribal society flourished within this Alpine region for centuries.
Only after World War II were serious efforts made to incorporate the
people of the region into the remainder of the country.

Southern Mountains

The extent of the region occupied by the southern mountains is not
settled to the satisfaction of all authorities. Some include all of the
area in a large diamond shape roughly encompassing all the uplands of
southern Albania beneath lines connecting Vlore, Elbasan, and Korce.
Although this area has trend lines of the same type and orientation, it
includes mountains that are associated more closely with the systems in
the central part of the country. Other authorities confine the area to
the mountains that are east of Vlore and south of the Vijose River.
These have features generally common to southern Albania and the
adjacent Greek Epirus. This demarcation is considered preferable because
it more nearly defined a traditional area that tends to lose some of the
more purely national character of the lands north of it.

The southern ranges revert again to the northwest to southeast trend
lines characteristic of the Dinaric Alps. They are, however, more gentle
and accessible than the serpentine zone, the eastern highlands, or the
North Albanian Alps. Transition to the lowlands is less abrupt, and
arable valley floors are wider. Limestone is predominant, contributing
to the cliffs and clear water along the Albanian Riviera. An
intermixture of softer rocks has eroded and become the basis for the
sedimentation that has resulted in wider valleys between the ridges than
are common in the remainder of the country. This terrain encouraged the
development of larger landholdings, thus influencing the social
structure of the area (see ch. 5, Social System).

[Illustration: Source: Adapted from Norman J. G. Pounds, _Eastern
Europe_, Chicago, 1969, p. 824.

_Figure 2. Landform Regions in Albania_]

Lowlands

A low coastal belt extends from the northern boundary southward to about
Vlore. It averages less than ten miles deep but widens to about thirty
miles in the Elbasan area.